She Who Must Not Be Named
by PenPatronus
Summary: It's nineteen years later and unbeknownst to the world Voldemort wasn't the only one who created Horcruxes. His best lieutenant is back, and only Harry, Ron, Hermione and what's left of Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix stand in her way. DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
1. The Face in the Window

**Story Summary:** It's nineteen years later and unbeknownst to the world Voldemort wasn't the only one who created Horcruxes. His best lieutenant is back, and only Harry, Ron, Hermione and what's left of Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix stand in her way.

**Genres:** Adventure, Drama, Romance, Hurt/ Comfort and Angst.

**Chapter Summary:** Hermione is possessed, and not by a diary. Ron is introduced to the Cruciatus curse.

**Story Rating:** PG-13 for some violence, language, and sexual innuendo.

**Story Disclaimer** (for all chapters): I own only the words and ideas between what J.K. Rowling owns.

**Indications:** Italics are for thoughts and dreams as well as emphasis. "**P**"s indicate a change in point of view and / or scene.

**She Who Must Not Be Named**

PenPatronus

Chapter One:

**The Face in the Window**

High above London, a lone phoenix soared. He was hunting. He could smell her. He could sense the evil in her. She was close, he'd been told, and he'd been instructed to find her. Though his master had been gone for two decades, Fawkes still did his works. He was Albus Dumbledore's eyes and ears, hands and feet.

He was Dumbledore's song.

He was already too late.

**PPPPPPP**

Harry Potter placed his wand and glasses within arm's reach on the bedside table and crawled between the sheets from the foot of the bed to its head, careful to rub his cheek up Ginny's bare leg as he went. His wife had a sleepy smile waiting for him. Her long red hair was pulled back in a bun with a few loose tendrils brushing her shoulders. Harry leaned over her and pressed dry lips against her neck, and them rested them against her own. Ginny sighed against him and wrapped her arms around his bare chest and back.

"Is Lily asleep?"

Harry nodded as he fingered her white satin nightgown. "Finally…it's too quiet around here…you know, for Lily."

Ginny studied her husband with a knowing expression. "It's too quiet for me, too."

That morning the Potters had dropped their sons James and Albus off at Platform 9 3/4 for the start of the school term at Hogwarts. Their niece, Rose, had also left. Ron and Hermione and their son, Hugo, had joined them for lunch at the Burrow afterwards, then a Quidditch game with the rest of the Weasleys. It had been a long, fun-filled day, but Harry found himself far more tired than expected. There was an ache he couldn't identify. He knew that it was only partially due to the absence of his sons, and he waved the remaining percentage off as "old" age. Tomorrow he could rest before going back to work on Monday. And for now, there was Ginny.

"Harry…"

Harry turned his attention to the caresses Ginny's fingertips were making on his back. Gently he undid the clips in her hair, relishing in the scent that was released when it tumbled down to frame her cheeks. Ginny leaned in and nipped playfully at Harry's ear, then drew her lips down his neck before trailing kisses across his chest. When the suspense had built and he could wait no longer, Harry rolled her onto her back and kissed her full in the mouth. Their tongues were warm and their fingers clenched at sweating skin and their legs twisted.

Before long Ginny's nightgown was on the floor.

**PPPPPPP**

Hermione Weasley couldn't sleep, and it annoyed her that Ron could.

She was sitting up in their bed, reading by wand-light and counting his snores when something drew her eyes to the window. Through her peripheral vision she saw what looked like the rippling beginnings of a mirage. For a moment it seemed like the air just outside had become visible, nearly forming the features of eyes, nose, and mouth. But when she raised the light, there was nothing there.

Hermione looked down at Ron. His nose was buried against her thigh and one arm was slung around her knees. His mouth hung slightly open and his breath smelled of the pumpkin juice they'd had at supper. Tenderly, Hermione drew her fingers through his red hair. Then she scooted out from under him and tiptoed towards the window, her wand held at her waist. It was fall in London, certainly not the time for a mirage, but Hermione was certain she'd seen something. Carefully and quietly she unlatched the window, opened it, and peeked her head out.

A sudden cold wind stung her face.

When Hermione opened her eyes, she found that she could not see.

**PPPPPPP**

Harry was dreaming. It was the same story, the same nightmares he'd had since age 17. Sometimes the images were in different orders, or the events would happen to different people, or some other detail would change. But they were always old scenes, old memories. Harry was so used to them that they were dreams rather than nightmares. Luckily the macabre part of his brain lacked imagination.

That night he appeared in the graveyard with Albus instead of Cedric. He could do nothing but watch as the green light from Wormtail's wand enveloped his son and tossed his limp body into the air. And then he was in the Chamber of Secrets, unable to fend off the basilisk as an adult Ginny, wearing her wedding dress, grew paler and paler as she died. And then he was in the pool in the forest, drowning while the Horcrux around his neck choked him. And the arms that reached from the surface pushed him down instead of pulling him up. His chin connected with the sword of Gryffindor, and he inhaled red water.

But then, a voice: "_Potter_."

In his sleep, Harry thought, "_Sn—Professor Snape_?"

Bizarrely, there was a new scene. For years he'd dreamed of nothing but the horrors of his past, but here was a new sight. He was flying over London, not only on the wind but part of it. Only it. He was bodiless, more than a spirit but less than a poltergeist. For hours he went from window to window, looking for any familiar face. He had a mission that couldn't be fulfilled without a destination. Something was following him, but he wasn't sure what. He only knew it wouldn't deter him from his goal. And then, finally, he glanced in a room and recognized the couple in the bed. Both rage and triumph filled him.

Aha! They could tell him where she was! But, undoubtedly, they would put up a fight, and he was in no shape to…

Unless…

Harry watched Hermione open the window. He felt himself enter her body and violate her mind and make her move like a puppet. He made her raise her wand, and point it.

Fear propelled Harry out of the dream and into a sitting position in his bed.

"_Ron_!"

**PPPPPPP**

Ron shivered. There was a breeze in the bedroom, and his nose warmer had disappeared. In his half-asleep state he frowned and groped his hands around the bed, reaching for his wife. Her absence woke him up completely, as did a sudden pressure on his bare chest.

The moonlight shining through the open window gave Hermione an angelic silhouette. She stood over Ron on the bed, and her limbs were shaking. But the wand was steady.

"Where…is…she?" Hermione asked. But it wasn't Hermione's voice, or at least another's tainted it. Ron squinted and spotted a red glint in his wife's eyes. He felt his own skin pale with dread.

The woman above him was not his wife.

The wand tip dug deeper, bruising Ron's chest. "Tell me…where she is…or I will kill you."

Ron wished their positions were switched. His Hermione would know what to say.

"Where who is?"

"She who…made you…she who…did this to me!"

"She who made me?" Ron slowly raised himself up on his elbows but the wand pushed him back down. "Who are you?"

For a moment, the smallest of moments, whoever was controlling Hermione weakened. The red glint disappeared. The grip on the wand slackened. Ron sprang to action.

He yanked the bed sheets and Hermione was thrown off her feet to land in a heap on the floor. Ron rolled off the bed, snatching up his wand from the bedside table. He landed on his bare feet and started to raise his weapon, but he was too late.

"_CRUCIO_!"

Across the hall, Hugo Fred Remus Weasley awoke to his father's screams.

**To Be Continued**


	2. Scuffle

**She Who Must Not Be Named**

PenPatronus

Chapter Two:

**Scuffle**

Harry Apparated into the hallway outside of Ron and Hermione's Muggle flat. He froze, his wand hidden in his jean jacket, and waited to see if the neighbors heard his arrival. When doors didn't burst open, he rapped his knuckles against the Weasley's. His knock was answered by a scream.

"_MUM, NO_!"

"Hugo?" Recognizing his nephew's voice, Harry forced the door open and sprinted into the apartment. There was a hallway dividing the kitchen from the living room. It led to the bedrooms, and Hugo was crouching in the middle of it. Hermione stood above him, over him, and she seemed to be having some sort of internal struggle. Her wand would point at her son, and then at the ceiling, and then back down again.

Harry stepped between Hermione and Hugo and grabbed her wand hand with both of his. "Hermione!" Harry gasped. "Stop—STOP!" Her eyes were _red_. The same color Ron's eyes almost turned when he was fighting the locket Horcrux. The same color as Voldemort's. Harry went weak with shock. "_Hermione_?"

Her left fist came out of nowhere. Harry stumbled into the master bedroom and tripped over something lying on the floor: Ron's prone body. With a shriek, Hermione leapt over her husband and landed on Harry's chest. Harry kicked, shifted his weight, but she had him pinned.

"Where is she who did this to me?" Hermione demanded, and Harry found himself mesmerized by the hollow timbre of her voice. "_Where's the bitch who __**killed**__ me_?"

Harry Potter knew that voice. That voice had mocked and screamed at him so many times that he could recognize it in the crowded Great Hall.

Just like Tom Riddle had done to Ginny, just like Voldemort had done to Harry, Hermione was possessed.

A caw came from the open window beyond the bed. Harry raised his face just in time to register a blur of orange and red as Fawkes the Phoenix soared through the window and slammed into Hermione's chest. Her wand clattered to the floor and Harry snatched it on his way up to his feet. Just then two more Apparation pops came from the hallway beside the cowering Hugo. George and Percy Weasley entered the scene with their wands raised.

Cornered, Hermione screamed and tried to dash past Harry and through the window. Four stunning spells hit her in the back, and she collapsed to the floor unconscious. Everyone watched in awe as a mirage-like spectral with red dots for eyes detached itself from Hermione's body and floated through the window.

"Go get her!" Harry shouted at Fawkes. The Phoenix nodded, and flew out the window after her, also disappearing into the night. Harry slammed the window shut behind them.

"Harry!" Percy gasped, his glasses askew and his whole body shaking. "We got Ginny's message. What the hell is going on?"

"Possessed." Harry bent from his waist, trying to catch his breath and his bearings. He wasn't as young as he used to be. "Hermione was possessed." Harry used his wand to move Hermione's body onto the bed while Percy knelt beside Ron.

"By what?" asked George.

"By who," Harry corrected. His voice was deadpan.

"Geor-gie?" Hugo whimpered. The youngest Weasley stumbled through the doorway and into his uncle's arms.

"Hey Hu-Fred," George soothed with his special nickname. "I gotcha, big guy. It's all right, it's all right." George lifted his nephew into his arms and held the child to his chest.

"Merlin's Beard," Percy muttered. He looked up at Harry while using his wand to point at the bruises on Ron's body. "Cruciatus. Hermione did this?"

"Lestrange," said Harry. He helped Percy lift Ron onto the bed next to Hermione. "That was Bellatrix Lestrange."

"What?" George tightened his grip on Hugo. "That's not possible. We all saw her die 19 years ago. We were there!"

"There are many ways it could be possible," muttered Harry.

"Well she's not a ghost," said Percy. He was using healing spells on the surface bruises of Ron's skin.

"But she's incorporeal enough to need to borrow somebody else's body."

"I don't get it," said George. "Why would Bellatrix Lestrange come here? Why Hermione? What does she want?"

"What she wants is a physical body," said Harry. "Remember when Voldemort needed my blood? It wasn't only to break my mother's spell."

"So Bellatrix needs blood…" Percy mused. "But that means she'll want—"

Harry nodded, confirming.

"Oh no." George's jaw dropped. "_Mum_!"

**To Be Continued**


End file.
